You just have to stare
Long enough at what's pretty
To realize that it's not your world,
Nor have you asked it to be.
Every cage has a painted face:
Between you and that
Expansive view you own – is
Glass, and preoccupations that keep
You inside, on the cold floor
Of buy-it and file-cabinet traditions.
“This is how you fill out forms,”
They told you when you first came –
Weekends are for form-writers,
resting
So they can dream. Overtime is
for you
Form-fillers, grabbing at these
dollars; this cubicled,
pre-packaged
feed.
… You have to
free up
what you are
to match
where you want
to be.
Personally, this poem really demonstrated the potential pitfall of entering the corporate workfield and losing grip on what having a sense of freedom and tenacity feels like. The way Kuntzman suggests humans become too consumed with minute details of their life which prevents them from enjoying the view that they ‘owned’. This poem made me anxious and scared that the focus of my life could one day be about filling forms for my mundane job in order to pay bills for a view of something I once yearned for but now don’t appreciate. To me, the postcard reference in the title reminds me of being young and traveling and sending postcards to your parents to show them your adventures, yet it remains hung up on to a wall by a tack of a reminder of what life was like.
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